When Susan and Peggy McKevitt bought their Arts and Crafts duplex 28 years ago, they accepted the cramped kitchens that came with each unit. But last year, they decided it was time for a dramatic makeover.

Completed in 1959, this 4,220-square-foot southwest Minneapolis house was so unusual that it attracted attention from the New York Times and Progressive Architecture magazine. Now, you can have it for $1.225 million.

What's your vision of the perfect home? Here are 12 designs of distinction singled out by AIA Minnesota. Each will be featured in the coming year as a Home of the Month, but you can get a sneak peek at them now.

Minnesota ad executive Ray Mithun built his Lake Minnetonka home with walls of glass, inspired by the architecture of Palm Springs, Calif., during the "Mad Men" era. You can have it for $4.995 million.

Decades later, Greg Peterson still owns and operates Peters Billiards, now a game and home furnishings store in south Minneapolis. And his collection of vintage tables has ballooned to nearly 90, including the four he keeps at his home in Edina.

An Eden Prairie couple thought about moving when their home no longer met their needs, but decided against it. "We had neighbors we really liked," she said. So they decided to invest in the home they already had "to make the house how we wanted it."

A Twin Cities builder's remodeled 1953 house in Minnetonka now glows with the copper sheen of wall-to-wall pennies — 51,000 of them laid tails-up in a guest bedroom, and 46,000 laid heads-up in the office.

Today, it's hard to tell where Renee Allen's garden ends and Sheryl Hybert's begins; both women have filled the boulevard and just about every inch of their front yards with plants. "That's the cool thing — gardens bring people together," Allen says.

Building a big house as a new retiree isn't the norm. "Once you have grandchildren, you want places that work for them — where they can slam doors and throw things on the floor," said grandma Jackie Chase.

An Eisenhower-era rambler in St. Louis Park was crying out for a makeover, telling its remodeling designer what it wanted to be — clean-lined, simple and quiet, like a midcentury modern Scandinavian home. You can have it for $550,000.

Members of a Minnesota family say living in a tiny house has allowed them to live on one income, home-school their kids and "instill amazing values — valuing experiences and time together over stuff we store in our house."